The Turing Test

Genre: First-Person Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

The Turing Test is a First-Person Puzzle game released on PC and Xbox in 2016, ported to PlayStation 4 in 2017, then ported to Nintendo Switch in 2020. Then, in early 2023, it was delisted from the Nintendo Switch eShop for reasons unknown, and since the Nintendo Switch never received a physical release of the game, this means that the game is now unplayable on Nintendo Switch for anyone except those who bought it during the three years or so that it was available.

What’s the point of reviewing a delisted game? Well, I suppose some players may want to know what they’ve missed out on, and players with another gaming platform that has the game can still get it on those platforms. And I suppose that in the end, given how much of a focus eShopperReviews places on digital games, this serves as an important reminder of one of the downsides of digital games – unlike physical games, digital games can be instantly removed in a way that no one will be able to access them ever again.

Of course, people aren’t as likely to mourn a delisted game if it wasn’t actually good, so that brings us back to The Turing Test – was it good?

The Turing Test has players controlling Ava, an engineer on a space station orbiting the Jupiter moon of Europa. Ava is awoken from cryosleep when the station loses contact with the rest of the station’s expedition team on Europa, and she journeys down to the planet below to uncover what happened, only to find that the structure on Europa has been altered to transform the base into a series of Turing tests that can only be solved by a human. Ava must pass these tests to get farther into the base to discover the fate of the surviving crew members and what caused the strange events taking place on Europa.

The presentation here is quite good, with 3D visuals that use excellent lighting and for the most part have some wonderfully-detailed textures, although I did notice a few textures that were low-resolution, such as the branding on fans dotted throughout the facilities you explore. Also, the service structures you spend most of the game in get pretty repetitive. All of this is joined by decent voice acting and good cinematic music that does a satisfactory job of setting the tone of the game.

As for the story, well… if you call your game The Turing Test and make your one constant companion from the start of the game an AI, it doesn’t take much thinking to get an idea what direction the game’s plot is going to take. If the first hour of the game includes an easily-accessible secret room where text on a screen accuses you of being a computer, you probably have a rough idea of the path the rest of the game’s plot will take.

The gameplay, at least, is pretty good. Where the Portal series had its titular portals as its signature mechanic, and The Talos Principle had line-of-sight lasers, The Turing Test has machines and doorways that you power and depower using either blocks you must physically carry from one place to another, or energy spheres you can absorb into a gun-like device and transmit to another receptacle, all via line-of-sight. It’s nothing truly revolutionary for the genre, but it works, and makes for some clever puzzles, especially as the game adds new devices to complicate things as you progress.

In the end, I don’t think The Turing Test is quite the same level of genius as the Portal games and The Talos Principle, but it is still an excellent entry in the First-Person Puzzle genre, and one well worth playing. It’s just a shame that at this point, anyone wanting to play it will need to do so on another platform.

tl;dr – The Turing Test is a First-Person Puzzle game that has players controlling an engineer investigating missing crew members on the moon of Europa, requiring her to solve puzzles about empowering various devices. This game doesn’t revolutionize the First-Person Puzzle genre, but it is a good entry in the genre nonetheless. It’s just a shame that the Nintendo Switch release has since been delisted.

Grade: B

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